Telehealth & Project ECHO in Oregon

Telehealth in Oregon

Each State and payer defines telemedicine and telehealth differently. Oregon defines:

Telemedicine means the provision of health services to patients by physicians and health care practitioners from a distance using electronic communications.

Telehealth means a variety of methods, through the use of electronic and telecommunications technologies, for the distance delivery of health care services, including dental care services, and clinical information designed to improve a patient’s health status and to enhance delivery of the health care services and clinical information.

Telehealth providers need to be licensed in Oregon and credentialed at your hospital.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare (JCAHO) rules delegating credentialing allow originating site hospitals to rely on the credentialing and privileging decisions of the distant facility where the provider is physically located.

The originating facility is responsible for providing internal review information of the provider’s performance of telemedical privileges to the distant site.

The Oregon ECHO Network is a statewide utility that supports the delivery of ECHO programming and services. Please see this link for available program opportunities. All programs are offered for no cost to the participant or facility and offer no cost CME.

For more information on how your facility can participate, please contact Maggie McDonnell | mclainma@ohsu.edu.